He watched them persistently, wishing to detect their fraud, to convince himself of their falsehood.
Their grave firmness angered him, their unanimous self-confidence, their triumphant faces, their loud voices, their laughter.

They were already seated by the tables, covered with luncheon, and were hungrily admiring the huge sturgeon, almost three yards in length, nicely sprinkled over with greens and large crabs.

Trofim Zubov, tying a napkin around his neck, looked at the monster fish with happy, sweetly half-shut eyes, and said to his neighbour, the flour merchant, Yona Yushkov: "Yona Nikiforich! Look, it's a regular whale! It's big enough to serve as a casket for your person, eh?
Ha, ha! You could creep into it as a foot into a boot, eh?
Ha, ha!" The small-bodied and plump Yona carefully stretched out his short little hand toward the silver pail filled with fresh caviar, smacked his lips greedily, and squinted at the bottles before him, fearing lest he might overturn them.
Opposite Kononov, on a trestle, stood a half-vedro barrel of old vodka, imported from Poland; in a huge silver-mounted shell lay oysters, and a certain particoloured cake, in the shape of a tower, stood out above all the viands.
"Gentlemen! I entreat you! Help yourselves to whatever you please!" cried Kononov.

"I have here everything at once to suit the taste of everyone.

There is our own, Russian stuff, and there is foreign, all at once! That's the best way! Who wishes anything?
Does anybody want snails, or these crabs, eh?
They're from India, I am told." And Zubov said to his neighbour, Mayakin: "The prayer 'At the Building of a Vessel' is not suitable for steam-tugs and river steamers, that is, not that it is not suitable, it isn't enough alone.